Lord Krsna - Master of Yoga

"The supreme bliss is found only by the tranquil yogi, whose passions have been stilled. His desires washed away, the yogi easily achieves union with the Eternal. He sees his Self in all beings, and all beings in his Self, for his heart is steady in Yoga."

- ~ The Bhagavad Gita

The Bhagavad Gita, the most popular and authoritative work on the subject of transcendence in India. Most of the principles of Hindu philosophy are summed up in the Bhagavad Gita as the sermon of Lord Krishna to Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. The Gita, as it is commonly known, is a poem of seven hundred verses spread over 18 chapters in the great Hindu epic of the Mahabharata which narrates the story of the descendants of King Bharata, popularly known as Kauravas and Pandavas, who fought a destructive civil war about five thousand years ago.

The greatest book on Yoga, the Bhagavad Gita was delivered by Lord Krishna on the eve of one of the fiercest battles fought on Indian soil. The Gita is held to be the textbook of theistic Yoga par excellence.

Each chapter propounds a different type of Yoga. Lord Krishna has been addressed as Mahayogi in the Mahabharata. Lord Krishna's teaching in the Bhagavad Gita have inspired some of the greatest mystics of the Hindu tradition. Simply stated, the human being only achieves union with God in all of His aspects through a fusion of contemplation and action. God is after all both Eternal Being and Eternal Becoming; in contemplative knowledge of our eternal identity with Brahman, we rest in God's Being, like a drop of water in the all-surrounding ocean; in enacting the divine will selflessly, we participate in the transforming activity of God.

The Bhagavad Gita is sometimes described as being in some sense a book of yoga. It emphasizes self-discipline and control over the senses as essential techniques of a yoga that it defines as the "balance" of the individual and universal consciousness. "The wavering, restless mind goes wandering on", Krishna advises the despondent Arjuna: "you must draw it back and have it focused every time on the soul...Yoga is a harmony, he later continues, "a harmony in eating and resting, in sleeping and keeping awake: a perfection in whatever one does." The yoga that Lord Krishna expounds in the Gita is the karma (action) yoga of self control, and bhakti yoga - the way of "devotion". In the Bhagavad Gita, Krsna explains to Arjuna the various routes by which to achieve full consciousness of Atman and therefore perfect unity with Brahman. Lord Krishna was called Yogesvara because he was able to think of Yoga as means of achieving the goal by way of self realization.

"This immutable Yoga I proclaimed to Vivasvat. Vivasvat imparted it to Manu, and Manu declared it to Ikshvaku. Thus handed down from one to another, the royal seers learned it."

The Gita suggests four important ways to attain moksha - salvation. These four ways are four yogas: Jnana Yoga, Karma Yoga, Raja Yoga and Bhakti Yoga. Jnana is the ultimate state, but it has to be reached with the help of other yogas such as Raja Yoga, Karma Yoga and Bhakti Yoga, the latter two being more popular. Even each of these yogas are independently capable of getting moksha to the practicant; but as the aspirant proceeds in his yogic experience, he necessarily tends to acquire elements of the other yogas and attains perfection because perfection is the ultimate goal of all the yogas.

Lord Krishna - The Master of Yoga

Refer to Deva Premal music - Dakshina

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Lord Krsna says:

"Fix your mind on me, Arjuna, practice this yoga, and trust me. Listen, and you'll start to realize just what I am."

"Of all the endless thousands of men, only one here and there seeks enlightenment, and among those few there are even fewer who know me as I really am."

"There are three states in nature, three strands, three gunas - and they come from me. They are the virtuous sattva, the passionate rajas and the dark and heavy tamas. They are in me, but I am not in them. They serve to snare and delude the whole world, which can't perceive that I lie beyond them, unchanging and undying. Out of these gunas is woven my maya, a power that is hard to escape. Only those that trust me can get beyond that uncanny force."

The Bhagavad Gita speaks about very high level of reality. The basic setting of the Gita is a battle ground. In the middle of the most significant battle of his life, on the field of dharma (responsible action), Arjuna, who is by type and deep inclination a warrior, is confused about right action and about his responsibility in the face of the conflicting demands of the different levels of dharma. He turns to Krishna, now acting as his charioteer, for help and instruction. The Bhagavad Gita, which means song of the Blessed One, contains the teaching given by Lord Krishna to Arjuna in his hour of crisis of conscience.

"Fix your mind on me, Arjuna, practice this Yoga, and trust me. Listen, and you'll start to realize just what I am"

The Bhagavad Gita, a world beloved, timeless classic was treasured by American writers from Emerson to T S Eliot.

(image source: Philosophy of Hinduism - By Galav p. 94).

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It is clear right from the very beginning of the book that the teaching is about dharma. Dharma is essentially at all scales; at the scale of the entire cosmos, of society, of the family, and of the individual. The central subject of the Gita is dharma and the part we have in maintaining order – at all scales! Thus the Gita is a dialogue between the Dark Lord and the white pupil, between the Infinite and the finite, between the Unknown Mystery of the other shore and a wayfarer setting out from this shore, apprehensive and unsure. It is an exchange between different levels, within ourselves as well as outside. Krishna himself says ‘From me is all this world (BG 7:7), or ‘This whole cosmos is strung on me like pearls on a string’, and ‘I reside in the heart of every being’ (BG 13:2). In these and in similar expressions, Krishna indicates that he operates at the largest scale and at the highest level. Arjuna, on the other hand, is confused about action in a particular situation, at a very different scale and level.

The general outlook of the Gita is that every action, even the smallest, has a cosmic background, even though we may not be aware of it. The idea that a human being has the possibility - not the actuality but the possibility of being a microcosmic image of the whole cosmos is an idea which is central to Indian thought. A human being is called a Kshudra Brahmanda, a small Brahmanda, the little egg of the Vastness. The whole universe is Brahmanda (the egg of Brahman, the Vastness) and a human being is a small Brahmanda. Arjuna must do on his human scale what Krishna does on a cosmic scale namely, he must assume responsibility for the maintenance of order.

The Bhagavad Gita preaches reintegration through the way of action (karma yoga). Having removed all attachment and established oneself in the path of realization, one should remain in action, keeping an even mind, whether, one's actions bear fruit or not. It is this equanimity of mind which is named yoga. The Blessed Lord said: "Fearlessness, cleanness of life, steadfastness in the Yoga of wisdom, alms-giving, self-restraint, sacrifice and study of the Scriptures, austerity and straightforwardness; Harmlessness, truth, absence of wrath, absence of crookedness, compassion to living beings, uncovetousness, mildness, modesty, vigor, forgiveness, purity, absence of envy or pride..."

The Bhagavad Gita Yoga may be called 'Anasakti-Yoga' - the Yoga of non-attachment. Lord Krishna speaks again and again of the evil of contact with externals and exhorts all to cut down the tree of worldliness with the axe of non-attachment. The world is sustained by desire and affection for things perishable. Sattva, Rajas and Tamas, three primordial properties of Prakriti, constitute the stuff of the world of the senses. Lord Krishna is the Supreme Self, and everyone should seek shelter under Him, this is the path to Perfection, to Immortality.

The gist of Krishna's teaching is given in the following stanza: "Steadfast in Yoga perform actions, abandoning attachment and remaining the same in success and failure, O Dhananjaya. Yoga is called 'even-ness' (samatva) (BG II.48).0. The advice of Krishna is designed to draw the attention of the devotee from the external to the inner world, for the Lord, the intangible and ineffable "Knower", the wonder of creation, resides in us. The crude material instruments of science, however delicate, precise, and sensitive they might me, cannot reach this holy of holies, this Knowing principle which, lying disguised in the savants, is himself their inventor, designer and architect. It is no material science, but a loftier discipline that alone can hope to explore this most mysterious inner universe.

Yet, like a modern teacher, Krishna, the God incarnate, does not impose this doctrine on his disciple or on his audience, for that matter. He only counsels Arjuna, and after giving all his lecture, in the end, He tells that "It is my opinion; you are at liberty to do whatever you think is right for you."

This is the greatest example of the freedom in God worship in Hinduism when the Lord God Himself does not compel people to have faith in only Him or incite in them fears of doom and damnation as punishment for disbelieving.